The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1887-05-11
FOOD BY SCIENTIFIC METHODS.

The Possible Results to BE Reached by
Ghemistry-TheA IaIthusian Specter.
IL is pleasant to turn from these wars
and rumors of wars and preparation Tor
fighting to some of the contemplated VIC
tories of peace and science. The Slemens
are a famous family Of German saVants
who have made important discoveries III
several departments of scientific research
One of the brothers invented the process
of storing electricity. The possibilities OF
this invention are incalculable We are
only beginning to dimly realize its inn
Dortance. Dr. Siemen, another brother,
has written a work in which 4lH boldly
states that we are on the eve OF the pro-
,luction of food by scientific methods
without depending upon plant or animal
reproduction and growth. He saysthat
chemistry, in conjunction with electro
technics, will some day teach man TO
make the food he now obtains from the
earth by q combination of the elements
of which such food consists and which
nature supplies everywhere in the utmost
abundance In other words, science, he
thinks, may at some future time lay the
MaIthusian specter of overpopulation and
diminishing returnsErom the soil.
Another suggestion is that the recent
achievements Of science, with the aid OF
mechanical art, upon the field OF ap-
V
relative independence from capital it en-
loved before the command of machine
power by the latter rendered competition
of the individual wage worker with me-
chanicaI production impossible. They Will
also restore, he thinks, the greater exer-
else of individual intelligence in labor, IN
phase of the mere mechanical performance
compelled by the present organization OF
Industrial production. He does not de-
fine his meaning in detail on this point,
but it is evident, from his other public eX-
pressions on this favorite subject, that he
expects those results to be accomplished
by the great cheapening of mechanical
power, through its general distribution,
among the mass of workers, by electricity,
so that they can free themselves from the
advantage capital has now over them by
exclusive command of expensive machine
power.
What a vista this opens up before us!
If the chemist can take the elements OF
the earth about us and produce whole
some and palatable food at a very trifiing
cost, how changed will be the whole life
of man on this planetl Poverty will be
abolished. The surface of the globe car
then become one vast city. There would
be no more sIaughtering of animals fol-
food, nor toilsome labor in the wheat anC
corn fields All this may seem visionary
but suppose an old Grecian or Roman
was told that some day men would trave
in safety at the rate of 60 miles an hour
that immense ships would plow through
the ocean at 20 miles an hour, regardless
of wind or waves; or, more marvelOul
still, that a message could be flashed
upder the ocean and an answer be re
turned in a few moments. The citizen o
the ancient world would have said that hi
informant was Iunatic; that such thing
was prodigies that man could never hop
to accomplish. The telephone, through
which people can keep up a conversation
hundreds of miles apart, would hav
seemed still more incredible to those VIII
lived in prescientiic age. The possible
ties of scientific discovery are simply in
calculable. Monthly.